The provincial government has clawed back almost $20,000 in death benefits that came to Neil Matheson from the Canada Pension Plan into which his late wife paid for 17 years, writes the single dad, who gets disability payments because he has cerebral palsy.
His wife, Elana, was also disabled, Matheson says. She suffered from a congenital disorder that forced her to use a motorized wheelchair but nevertheless persevered through university and worked as a teacher in Langley, paying for the benefits she left him when she died.
Matheson, 48, who worked for 20 years himself, has been on disability assistance for the past seven years. He was born in Vancouver, graduated from UBC in 1994 and has written a memoir, “Daddy Bent-Legs,” published in 2009.
He and Elana were married for 10 years. A year after the birth of their son, Jake, she was diagnosed with the auto-immune illness that killed her four years later.
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![Neil Matheson and his son Jake. The provincial government has clawed back almost $20,000 in death benefits that came to Matheson from the Canada Pension Plan into which his late wife paid for 17 years, writes the single dad, who gets disability payments because he has cerebral palsy. [PNG Merlin Archive]](http://wpmedia.vancouversun.com/2016/07/neil-matheson-and-his-son-jake-the-provincial-government-ha.jpeg?w=640)
Neil Matheson and his son Jake. The provincial government has clawed back almost $20,000 in death benefits that came to Matheson from the Canada Pension Plan into which his late wife paid for 17 years, writes the single dad, who gets disability payments because he has cerebral palsy.
But because he’s disabled, the province deducts $480 a month from his provincial social assistance benefits. That’s because it deems Canada Pension Plan benefits “unearned income.” The province used to deduct the whole $715, he says, but last September it exempted $235 from the clawback as his son’s “orphan’s portion.”
The question is why the province deems any Canada Pension benefits as unearned income?
Let’s see, CPP contribution levels are set according to income and deducted from earnings. Benefit payouts are determined by earned income thresholds while paying into the fund. CPP benefits are taxable income. So by any measure of common sense, most reasonable people would define CPP benefits as having been earned.
Under B.C. provincial rules, the first $9,600 of earned income for people with disabilities receiving assistance is exempt from clawbacks. But arbitrarily defining CPP income as unearned lets the province to seize it from those who are most vulnerable and most in need of provincial assistance.
This Scrooge-like practice amounts to the deliberate and shameful institutionalization of structural poverty for people who are most vulnerable and have no alternatives.
“Clawing back death benefits is discriminatory and perverse social policy,” writes Matheson. “Clawing back our yearly bus passes and then choosing to off-load the full brunt choice of food and rent versus bus pass on the persons-with-disabilities crowd is again discriminatory and perverse social policy.”
“In the three years since my wife’s death, then, the social development and social innovation ministry has clawed back over $20,000 of extra monies from me that my wife herself paid into for 17 years. My wife worked hard for that CPP privilege, just the same as everyone else does.”
Why, he wonders, does the province then feel justified in practising what he calls “blatant disrespect and disregard” for those who happened to be on social assistance because of their disabilities?
Most reasonable people would define this as discriminatory since it only applies to people who happen to be disabled. And Matheson points out that other provinces don’t do this.
“Other provinces respect death benefits for those on persons with disabilities social assistance, why not B.C.?” he asks. “Every province except B.C. has a poverty reduction plan — why is that?
“It is plainly obvious to me that nobody seems to care about doing the right and fair thing. I’ve written dozens of emails to my B.C. government over the last two years asking the same exact question and nobody cares. Nobody cares that clawing back over $20,000 of my inherited death benefits is a clear example of backwards and perverse social policy. Nobody cares about fair and equal access to hard-earned privileges for the persons with disabilities crowd and other disadvantaged.”
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